Catholic Churches of NCC includes: Saint Patrick Parish Seneca WI; Saint Philip Parish Rolling Ground WI; Saint Mary Parish Gays Mills WI; St James Cemetery Rising Sun WI; Kneeland Cemetery Seneca WI catholicchurchesofncc.com

Sunday, May 3^rd, 2026  -    5^th Sunday of Easter

St. Mary, St. Patrick, St. Philip Parishes

Mailing address for all three parishes:  PO Box 35, Seneca WI 54654

Website:  https://www.catholicchurchesofncc.com

Confessions: Normally, 30 minutes before

every Mass and by appointment.

Normal Monthly Eucharistic Adoration:

St. Patrick: First Friday after the 8:30 AM Mass

St. Philip: First Sunday after the 10:30 AM Mass

Mass Intentions This Week

Pastor: Fr. Tom Huff – Rectory 608-734-3252 email: frtomhuff@gmail.com

Bookkeeper, Bulletin, Mass Intentions, Membership: Kevin Murray 608-391-0434 or 608-734-3931 and email: secretary@ncc.diolcparish.org

New Bulletin Information Deadline: Mondays at 6:00 PM. Bulletin is posted on our website.

UPCOMING PARISH EVENTS

Sunday May 10^th 10:30 Mass is the First Holy Communion Mass for St. Philip's Parish

St. Mary Announcements:

Rosary – 30 minutes before Mass

First Sunday Potluck Brunch after Mass each first Sunday of the month. All are welcome, dish to share is appreciated, but not required. Next potluck is Sunday, June 7^th.

Saint Mary’s is open 7:00am – 7:00pm daily. Please feel free to come and pray and light a candle if you would like.

Food Pantry Donations can be left in the basket in the rear of the Church.

St. Philip Announcements:

St. Philip Candles: Contact Bonnie Murphy. The cost is $5 per candle.

Food Pantry items are needed. Please leave any gift at the rear of the Church.

Candles in memory of: Main alter – Health and Healing of Wanda & Gorden Mather, Blessed Virgin – Health of Monica Farrell Aspensen, St. Joseph – Health of Jim Gorman. By Janet McCormick

St. Patrick Announcements:

The St Patrick's PCCW will be participating in Rummage on the River, Friday, May 15, and Saturday, May 16 - 8 am - 4 pm each day. Start organizing your donations and bring them to the hall beginning in May (after CCD is finished). We will request free will donations for items purchased. Please sign up to work during setup and throughout the days of the sale (forms are located in the back of church). Contact Susie Garfoot at 608-317-0515 with any questions or suggestions.

Tri-Parish Announcements:

For Mass Intentions, if donating by check, please make all checks payable to: St. Mary Stipend Fund.

Tri-Parish Adult Faith Study will be at St. Mary’s on Tuesday, May 5^th at 7:00 PM.

The Weekly Bulletin is available on our parishes website, this is the link to the bulletin page, updated every Friday: https://www.catholicchurchesofncc.com/bulletins

Other Announcements:

The Diocese of La Crosse Chapter of Catholic Rural Life, in partnership with a local family farm and a seed dealership, has been entrusted with a generous opportunity to give back to our farming community. We are pleased to offer 30 bags of current-year, high-quality 99-day seed corn -- free of charge -- to be shared among three deserving recipients. This gift is intended to support approximately 25–30 acres for each family farm. We recognize that agricultural finances can present challenges, and it is our privilege to walk alongside those in our community during difficult seasons. Please direct all inquiries to our Rural Life Committee Chair -- Anne Marie Ellwing: Annemarie.elwing@wallstonellc.com.

What is “Rebuild My Church”?

The Rebuild My Church Initiative exists to accompany the priests, people, and parishes of the Diocese of La Crosse as we go through a process of pastoral planning that will allow us to live more abundantly as disciples of Jesus who make disciples. Change is inevitable, but we want to choose changes that build a culture of discipleship and accompaniment in our parishes. Piloting of local pastoral planning begins in August. Stay up to date by using your camera’s smartphone to scan the QR code.

Income from Last Week

Tri-Parish Prayer List – We want to pray for the sick and others in our parishes who need ongoing prayer. To be placed on or to place someone on our prayer list, please call: Sue Peterson 608-735-4865, Bonnie Murphy 608-386-4954, or Ica Boylen 608-734-3287.

From the Priest’s Corner: You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood

Saint Peter in the second reading today reminds us that all Christians are considered a "chosen race" and "royal priesthood," a status consecrated through baptism and solidified in confirmation. Baptism constitutes the foundation of the Christian life, incorporating believers into the Body of Christ. The use of sacred chrism during baptism symbolizes a share in Christ's threefold mission as priest, prophet, and king.

While all believers share in the common priesthood of Jesus Christ, this is distinct from the ministerial priesthood (ordained clergy), which serves the body of Christ by leading worship and administering sacraments. This "common priesthood" enables all baptized Christians to offer their lives as living sacrifices, intercede for others, and participate directly in the worship of God. A major component of this common priesthood of a Christian is offering "spiritual sacrifices," which includes practical charity, prayer, spreading the Gospel, and offering daily work and struggles as a form of worship. This common priesthood of the Christian is not a "position" but a way of life, marking Christians for a life of service and witness. Those baptized receive a "sublime dignity," serving as representatives of the King of Kings, empowered to do God’s work in the world.

The common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood of the clergy worship together at Mass. We are a priestly community. The lay faithful worship alongside the ordained priest. Both make offerings to God. The priest is specifically ordained to offer and consecrate the bread and wine on behalf of those gathered. The laity, too, actively participate by offering themselves and their gifts and sacrifices to God.

As the Catholic Catechism clarifies: Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, the person baptized is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (character) of his or her belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated. . . . The baptismal seal enables and commits Christians to serve God by a vital participation in the holy liturgy of the Church and to exercise their baptismal priesthood by the witness of holy lives and practical charity.

The Catechism concludes with the importance of remaining faithful to our priestly, prophetic and royal mission: The Holy Spirit has marked us with the seal of the Lord (Dominicus character) for the day of redemption. Baptism indeed is the seal of eternal life. The faithful Christian who has kept the seal until the end, remaining faithful to the demands of their Baptism, will be able to depart this life marked with the sign of faith, with their baptismal faith, in expectation of the blessed vision of God - the consummation of faith - and in the hope of resurrection.

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What Artificial Intelligence Can’t Replace by Geofrey Douglas (April 6, 2026)

The risk is not that AI will become human. It is that people will begin treating it as though it were.

PART 2

. . . . Artificial intelligence shares a fundamental continuity with earlier technologies: it is a man-made tool, developed by people who live and work within God’s creation. AI has no soul and no moral standing before God. It does not blur the line between Creator and creature. Claims that advanced AI might one day surpass or replace humanity, therefore, get human dignity wrong. Human worth does not rest on intelligence or productive capacity — it rests on the image of God, which belongs to human beings alone. A machine may one day outperform humans across many tasks, but such achievements would not alter the theological truth that human dignity comes from God’s image, not from computational power.

Still, AI differs from earlier technologies in one important respect. Previous technologies mainly extended human physical power or accelerated communication. AI, by contrast, imitates forms of thinking that people often associate with human intelligence, such as language, pattern recognition, and decision-making — even something that resembles creativity. Large language models generate fluent text, and generative systems can produce images and music at remarkable speed and scale. This creates a new kind of danger. The risk is not that AI will become human. It is that people will begin treating it as though it were, attributing to it a kind of personality, moral authority, or trustworthiness it does not possess. Studies of human interaction with AI show that people readily attribute human qualities to these machines. They form emotional attachments and trust AI-generated answers too easily. Some even begin to prefer AI conversation partners to real human relationships. Christians should recognize this tendency and respond with discernment. When people begin to treat machines as moral authorities or relational partners, genuine human accountability is weakened, and responsibility for decisions becomes blurred.

AI systems are extraordinarily good at quantification, pattern-matching, and repetitive processing at scale. These are genuine and useful capabilities. But computers do not create meaning. They do not exercise wisdom, form relationships, or bear responsibility for the consequences of their outputs. These belong to human beings, who alone bear God’s image. No increase in computing power changes that fundamental distinction.

This points toward what is perhaps the most useful way to frame the difference between AI’s proper use and its misuse: the distinction between delegation and abdication.

Delegation means wisely assigning to AI what falls within its strengths: processing large datasets, running calculations, producing drafts for human review. Abdication means handing over to a machine the kinds of decisions that belong to us human persons, who bear God's image: moral judgment, spiritual care, the pursuit of justice, and the formation of character. Christians may use these tools where they genuinely assist human work. They must not surrender to them where genuine human presence and accountability are essential.

To be continued . . .